DS chose U of Buffalo over GWU. Overall cost of attendance is $40K. Interested in Data Science but also loves polisci as well. GWU gave a great scholarship and was fair with financial aid but we still had this gap.
He submitted the GWU Declaration of Intent to decline once he committed to UBuffalo.
Is it too late? It’s been one week. They probably already gave his spot away.
We all have FOMO. Here. Can’t help feeling pennywise pound foolish.
At UB he would be a CompSci major. At GWU he would be a Data Science major. He realized perhaps a bit late that there are literally only 6 Data Science classes offered at GWU for his major. The rest are math maybe a couple of introductory CompSci classes and a whole lot of humanities.
He though UB was the better CompSci program. However fit and culture were perfect for him at GWU. We’re all now wondering if it was worth saving the $40K. When we talk college numbers they are so big it seems abstract. Of course $40K is a lot of money but maybe miscalculated the return on investment.
I can’t shake this feeling of this being a big mistake.
40k total for 4 years? Or 40k per year?
I think 40k total is an amount I would be willing to shell out for the right fit.
160k is a different story and not worth it.
Either way it doesn’t really matter- work hard and do well and he will be fine. Fit is overrated. These aren’t tiny schools- he can find great friends and opportunities at either place.
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No $40K total. This is why I am beating myself up. As a parent I am more upset about it than he is.
Have you tried contacting the college to see if they can reverse it? Worth a try?
Contact GW. And ask.
But guess what …no school is perfect for anyone. You get a bad roommate. Have bad profs etc. and Buffalo is a fine school.
Have a great attitude and crush it there…assuming he can’t change. No reason to think badly upon it.
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I don’t know why UB is getting raked over the coals on this site.
Our eldest attended because she was given a scholarship based on her academics. She was premed. She was admitted to USC, UCSD, UCI, UCD and Johns Hopkins. She didn’t want to go to the UC’s, which she considered her “safeties”. She wanted to go away. The offer to go from UB to the med school-linked programs was too good to pass up and we had two more to put through school.
She ended up majoring in Electrical Engineering and Comp Sci. She returned to SoCal for jobs, and the offers were lined up. She had a really good experience at UB because she took advantage of everything that was offered.
As an employee of a large firm, they offered to pay for her MS in either engineering or CS at USC or Johns Hopkins. She started the program and then realized she didn’t really need it to rise in the company and increase her pay.
If you can afford it, it sounds like you want GW.
Go with what your child wants. You can call and ask GW if you can change your decision.
If you can, great, you’ll be set, but if you can’t, UB is a very good school.
My husband (a Stanford alum) was very impressed with their programs. If your child is going into Comp Sci or Data Science, he will be employable and marketable and it wont matter where he received his degree.
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Thank you so very much for sharing your child’s journey.I very much needed to hear this.
I will admit that sounds like an amazing leap from CA to upstate NY! We are in state close to NYC.
He was accepted to the honors college which I’m hoping will be a good experience.
He really took a deep dive comparing the programs he applied to, UB’s CompSci program he felt was impressive. He applied as a Data Science major at GW. They only offered 6 actual DS classes. The rest was math, some basic cs courses and a whole lot of humanities. He felt he would be better prepared for DS at UB. Yes he could have switched majors but he is good to go at UB.
Thank you!!!
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Thanks to all who responded . $40k is $40! UB does seem great, if traditional. There is always grad school and I have his brother, a junior, who I need to see through college as well.
Where did your daughter do her internships? NY or CA?
Summers in California.
Edited To add: I have sent you a private message with some of the companies where she’s had internships.
And don’t forget that UBuffalo is part of National Student Exchange. NSE is a consortium of about 200 schools, mainly in the US but a few in Canada etc. You can do up to a year of exchange at a participating school, your credits transfer automatically, and best of all you only pay in-state/home state tuition and your scholarships apply. There are some cool schools that participate including American in DC (which maybe would be something like George Washington in feel?). Here’s a link : https://www.nse.org/exchange/colleges-universities/alpha-location/
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My recommendation to any serious student is to go someplace for the major, not the school. If GW only has 6 data science classes, then it is very likely that your child will be disappointed by the program, even if he loves GW and Washington DC. A class list that small is a message that the program is either brand new or not a priority at the school. If Buffalo has a solid Computer Science program, then attending that school is the right decision.
If there are really only 6 DS classes at GW, then that means that the professor depth in that major is pretty weak too. One or two professors leaving, and you could find yourself paying $60000 a year for your kid to have adjuncts who are mid-level IT professionals from local corporations. University of Buffalo is a big state school and is not going to have that problem.
I know several kids that picked a school for a lot of reasons that seemed good at the time and then got there and realized that the weakness in their preferred major was a big problem. You don’t want to find out junior year that your son just can’t make it work in the major and he ends up attending a local directional state campus because that is the place that will take his credits towards a degree.
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I’ve lived through them all :). Bad prof. Bad roomie. Bad food or at gw no food although they are allegedly opening a dining hall for fall.
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I hired data science professionals a decade before anyone even HAD a major called data science, and I think the advice to double down on a major for a kid who probably has no idea what his career options are is sub-optimal advice.
Even in a dedicated major there are going to be inter-disciplinary classes taken (in finance, out of the business school, in advanced statistics, out of the math department or specifically applied math if the university has both theoretical and applied departments, CS, etc.) The current fad for “branded majors” (biomedical engineering, neuroscience, etc.) which makes parents feel that their kid is going straight from college into a good job, obscures the fact that grads get jobs in these fields all the time with less specific and more general majors.
Aerospace companies hire mechanical engineers- you don’t need to major in aero. And LOTS of companies hire analysts to “do” data science with degrees in other things.
If it’s just FOMO- then take a walk around the block and forget about it. We all question our decision-making sometimes (and in fact, behavioral economics- a course any data scientist should take- seeks to quantify that phenomenon). But if your son truly thinks that GW is where he should be, and it’s affordable for your family, it’s worth making a phone call to find out if the option is still on the table.
Young neighbor of mine just got a fantastic job in data science. Majored in finance, took a lot of econ, psychology and statistics. And probably her biggest advantage- fantastic communication skills. She’s not someone you hide in the back room crunching regressions. She’s very personable, writes clearly, nice presentation style.
Soft skills count- even in a quant role!!!
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Exactly why my daughter has moved so fast up the CS/engineering ranks!
She is very good at teaching concepts to new engineers and Comp Sci staff by using analogies. She is asked, repeatedly, to train new Comp Sci and engineering interns and new hires.
She independently starts social contests (i.e. on May 4th, with Hostess cupcakes, she asked staff to “choose wisely” and to vote using Chocolate, for the Resistance, and Vanilla, for the Imperial Forces. She also sent out DIY paper airplanes valentines to ~60 staff, who followed the lead of Management to take speed, distance and wind measurements of their craft!)
She is recruited constantly by former colleagues who want her on their staffs.
It’s all about communication.
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I actually did forget about that. Thank you!
Wow! That’s amazing! My son isn’t that social but he is very articulate and has inherited his father’s ability to “translate geek” to layman’s terms. I would think that would get him far I think.
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